Schools: Finance

(asked on 23rd June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools in England are in (a) financial deficit (a) and have been in financial deficit in each of the past five years.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 29th June 2020

The Department delegates to schools the management of their own budgets and the vast majority are operating with a cumulative surplus, with only a small percentage having a deficit. The latest published figures show 94% of academy trusts and 90% of local authority-maintained schools are in cumulative surplus or breaking even.

Data on maintained school deficits in financial year 2019/20 is not yet available. We will publish this data in December. The table below shows the number of maintained schools in cumulative deficit in each of the four preceding financial years. This data is published at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/la-and-school-expenditure-2018-to-2019-financial-year.

2015/16

2016/17

2017/18

2018/19

Number of maintained schools in deficit

1,000

1,461

1,532

1,376

Trusts are the legal entities responsible for academies, including their finances, and, therefore, they account at trust level. The table below shows the number of academy trusts in cumulative deficit in each of the five previous academic years. We have published this data annually in the academies sector annual report and accounts (SARA) since 2015-16, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/academies-sector-annual-reports-and-accounts.

The provisional 2018/19 figure in the table is based on financial benchmarking data, available at https://schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk/Help/DataSources. This will be updated when the 2018/19 SARA is published in July.

2015/16

2016/17

2017/18

2018/19

Number of academy trusts in deficit

165

185

195

169

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